Quicksilver
by Berrigan
Summary: Tony, a gun and cocaine is a very dangerous combination.


**Quicksilver**

by berrigan

_rewritten for Paul_

_all characters belong to their respective owners_

Tony leaned back in his chair and glanced around the opulent dining room. Row after row of tables stretched across the carpeted floor. Every one of them was occupied. It was a busy night. Veronica sat across from him, looking over her menu, her shoulders hunched over ever so slightly. The front of her dress was drooping, exposing her cleavage.

Tony cleared his throat and looked down at his own menu, sighing at the long list of entrees. He wasn't hungry at all. He'd come home from a long day of riding all over town checking up on his bordellos and crack houses, and had planned to drop into bed and sleep until the weekend, but Veronica had been waiting when he'd gotten in, all dressed up in that ridiculous gold dress she'd bought last week. Tony knew she'd bought it because Stoker's wife had worn one when they'd come over for dinner the night before. Veronica had praised it and her to the end of the earth and back. She probably thought she was being nice, but she sounded like the worst ass-kisser in history.

Incidentally, Stoker and his wife were sitting a few tables away from them, politely ignoring each other over food and wine.

"Can I start you off with drinks this evening, sir, madam?" A waiter stood over their table, pen poised over his notepad. Veronica ordered food and wine for the both of them, giving the waiter a flirtacious look from under her fake eyelashes. Tony glared at the waiter, mentally challenging him to just _try_ flirting with his wife. The waiter disappeared like smoke in the wind.

Veronica sighed. "Why are you so pissed off, Tony?" She had a faraway look in her eyes and she was looking over his shoulder. She wasn't talking _to_ him, she was talking _at_ him.

"I've had a long day," he said simply, and she murmured something sympathetic, _maybe you should take some time off, we could go on a vacation – Madrid or Cancun, you could rest and I could get a tan_. Her voice was distorted, like he was underwater. Maybe he was submerged in a bathtub, too short on oxygen to think clearly enough to _sit up get out of the tub right now you're going to drown_. Had Veronica noticed? Or was she still sitting on the edge of the bathtub, painting her toenails and saying how they should invite the Monets over on Thursday evening, because their son had just come back from university and it would be nice to catch up, wouldn't it?

"Tony."

Tony felt himself drifting, suspended in the water, peaceful in knowing that he was drowning. Death wasn't so bad. It was like being high.

"Tony!" Tony blinked and shifted his eyes back into focus. Veronica had a concerned look on her face, but he could see the slight frown in her eyes. He looked down. There was food on the table. Tony reached for his water glass, ignoring the wine that sat beside it and gulped half of it down. His mouth, he had just realized, was very dry. The water around him disappeared, and he picked up his knife and fork and began to eat.

Across from him, Veronica was eating as fast as she could without appearing like a glutton. Every bite of that food would end up in the toilet when they got home. Just like Elvira – he may as well have remarried her. He'd walked in on the both of them hunched over the toilet too many times... and those horrible retching sounds. Perhaps they'd had seen him reflected in the mirror, shutting the door behind him as he left, the click of the doorknob muffled by the gasps and chokes.

Tony laid down his knife and fork, giving up on eating.

"Is the food not to your liking, sir?" Tony glanced up. The waiter was back. Tony waved him away.

"It's fine."

"Perhaps I could get you something else?"

"I said it's fine!" Tony said loudly. Half a dozen people glanced over at him, their conversations interrupted. Veronica, her fork in her mouth, was glaring at him, her cheeks as red as the meat on her plate – apparently raw steak was the in thing now.

Tony stood up, giving his wife a sugary smile. "I'll be right back, darling," he said. Veronica sniffed but didn't say anything. He wove his way between the sea of tables, making his way towards the restrooms.

The men's washroom was as opulent as the dining room. Gold and marble under strategically placed lights. Two men stood at opposite ends of the row of urinals. Tony sat down on the couch placed against the opposite wall and took a cigarette case out of his pocket. Sure, there was a sign pinned on the wall reading _No Smoking_, but beneath that was a side table with an ashtray upon it.

Two cigarettes were smoked down to the filters, and Tony's nerves still weren't calmed. He stubbed the half-smoked third one out on the table, missing the ashtray. He needed a line of coke. He hadn't had one since the morning, when he and Manny met with the new owner of the whorehouse on Avis Street. The previous owner had been in a car accident, supposedly. More likely, he was in a ditch somewhere with his brains all over his shirt.

Sighing, Tony stood up and went over to the sinks, wincing at the dark circles under his eyes. He wondered if there was anything going on tomorrow that could be put off until another day. He laughed. Of course he could put tomorrow's agenda off until another day! He was Tony fucking Montana. He could put the president off until another day, and the old man would still come crawling back to him like a leech to a plump body.

He decided that enough was enough, left the restroom and returned to their table. Veronica's plate was empty and the check was beside Tony's plate. He picked it up and glanced at the total, then shoved it into the hands of a waiter with a loaded tray, followed by a thin roll of twenties. Right now, he only had one goal in mind: get home and go to sleep.

When they got home, Veronica opened the car door herself for once and stormed up the front steps. Tony handed the car off to his car attendant and followed her. Veronica had bitched the entire way home. Why did he need to be so rude all the time? Why did he always need to shout and solve every problem with violence? Why couldn't he just be civilized for once? Why, why, why? Tony had no idea what had brought it on. Maybe she needed to be angry with him to justify, in her mind, the men that had come over while Tony was out that day.

When Tony got into the house, Veronica was nowhere around. Tony headed up to his office. He was in no mood to hear Veronica bitch all night was well, and then tell him that she wasn't in the mood. He's take his chances with a dozen lines of cocaine and the couch in his office.

His office was dark, but Tony could hear the breathing. He drew his gun and flicked on the light. Manny, squinting from the sudden light, was lounging on the sofa, a drink and ashtray on the floor beside him. He'd missed the ashtray, by the looks of the butt in his drink. The radio was on, one of those rock stations that Manny was so fond of.

"Hey Tony, where you been?" His voice was laced with sleep and he blinked a few times before sitting up somewhat.

"Veronica wanted to go out for dinner."

"Really? Where'd you go?"

"Fuck if I know. It was expensive, that's all I know."

"So you shell out a few hundred for dinner, why aren't you fucking her brains out now?"

"Fuck if I know," Tony repeated curtly. He lit a cigarette and dropped into the chair behind his desk. "Get out of here, Manny, I gotta sleep."

Manny pulled himself up. "Remember we're going to Jorge's tomorrow."

"Who?"

"Jorge. New guy – he owns a strip club on Rudien Street. He wants to start dealing as well. He's a quirky guy – could be a fag, I don't know, and we won't be able to get a fortune off him, but he'll give us what's fair, at least."

Tony shook his head. "Cancel it. I'm taking tomorrow off."

"Cancel? Tony, you got any idea how long it took me to set this up? You blow off Jorge, he's not gonna give you a second chance."

"I'm Tony Montana, Manny."

"I don't think he cares."

"Are you kidding me?"

Manny shrugged. "I told you he was quirky. He's got one hell of a stick up his ass, but he can really pick those girls. If you don't go, he's just going to buy from someone else."

"Oh, fuck it. Fine. Cancel everything else though. You want a line before you go?"

Manny sat down again. "Sure."

Tony shook some powder onto the mirror on his desk and tapped out a few lines while Manny rolled up a twenty. The room was silent except for the radio and quiet clicking, until Manny leaned over and snorted a line, then passed the rolled-up bill to Tony. Accepting the bill, Tony leaned down, the thin line of white powder stretched out ahead of him like a racetrack. _On your marks, get set, GO!_ He'd win the gold metal for coke snorting, Manny often joked. Tony sometimes thought it was true.

The two friends passed the bill back and forth until there was nothing on the mirror but stray dust, and they leaned back in their seats and closed their eyes. Tony's eyelid twitched for a few seconds before he brought a surprisingly cold hand up to massage the spasm out of it. He blinked, staring up at the ceiling. It was wavering, rippling furiously, a mirage before his eyes. His hearing shifted suddenly, and he could hear the blood pumping through his neck, that warm internal sound, and all he wanted was for his hearing to revert to the way it was. He swallowed, no luck.

He stood up, trying to clear his head, but stumbled and hit his head on the corner of the desk. He couldn't feel any pain, just warmth and a strange dampness on his brow, but when he drew his palm across his forehead, there was a long red smear on it. Whose blood was this?

He looked up at Manny, upside down from his viewpoint and chattering away. Manny always talked like this when he was high. Sentence after sentence, leaping from one topic to another in fragments, like the remains of a broken kaleidoscope, pretty pieces of plastic that are too small to truly appreciate the colour.

Tony let his head drop onto the carpet. For several thousand for a square foot, it was surprisingly hard. He blinked again. Something on his desk was shining in the lamp-light. Silver. Tony hated silver, such a cheap substitute for gold, and ugly. What did he own that was silver? Nothing.

Tony struggled up and grabbed at it, then fell back again, his head making a hollow thump on the floor. The object was cool and familiar in his hands. His index finger worked its way into the trigger guard by reflex, a natural action for him.

"Put a bullet in my brain, and it makes all the papers!"

"What're you talking about, Manny?" Tony asked. It took him a second to realize the voice had come from the radio – some Japanese asshole thinking that he could make money by screaming out bad poetry. Tony pulled at the cord with his foot and the radio crashed onto the thin carpet and fell silent. Idly, Tony thought of the old owner of the Avis whorehouse. In a ditch. His body was bloated in a ditch somewhere, and the man who had killed him had taken his place on the throne. A commendable job; exactly what Tony himself had done.

Running his thumb over the butt of the gun, Tony lifted it up, holding it over his face. It was heavy, so heavy. Was it loaded? The gun pulled his arm down with its weight, the barrel settling comfortably in the crook of his neck. The bullets make it too heavy, that's what it was. Normally, he'd be able to lift a gun, but he couldn't lift twelve-ton bullets as well. He was human. He wasn't God.

He liked the feel of the cool metal on his skin, and ran it across his cheek. The barrel slipped into his open mouth. His hand twisted round until his thumb was upon the trigger, the only thing stopping a bullet going into _his_ brain. Was it loaded? He hoped not. He'd be in bad company; sleazy pimps and shitty Japanese singers.

He hoped to God it wasn't loaded, and pulled the trigger.

_Fin._


End file.
